Autumnal Walking on Tenerife

 When you live on the island of eternal spring it can sometimes be tricky to spot when the seasons change, particularly when you have a summer like this one where calima after calima keeps the temperatures above the seasonal norms.
But anyone visiting Tenerife at the moment will spot a couple of things that are a dead give-away that autumn is upon us.
The first thing to look out for are the budding poinsettias which thrive in cultivated hotel gardens, parks and roadside displays all over the island at this time of year and can be seen growing wild by the side of the road and along country paths. In Tenerife's climate the poinsettia grows like weeds and left to its own devices [read full post]

Tenerife Walking with Children

Ever since I first pulled on a pair of walking boots and set off down a country lane, I've realised that  walking and hiking isn't, as I once thought, the exclusive domain of anoraks and middle aged dog owners. For us, the fun factor has always been top of the agenda which means that dull, route marches are given a wide body swerve and every outing should end with a beer or two in a local hostelry.

It was while answering a query last week from a customer about walking with youngsters that I realised how many of our Island Walks are actually excellent for families. It's one of the great things about walking on Tenerife that you can still find so much ' undeveloped space filled with surprises that make it the perfect environment for family outings.
Here are some of our favourites [read the full post]

Tenerife Scene of the Week an Idyllic Place to Live

Depending on likes and dislikes people will tell you why they prefer to live in the south of Tenerife as opposed to the north, or the east as opposed to the west…or any variation of.

I have moments when it hits me like a crane’s wrecking ball straight to the solar plexus why I love living in the north of Tenerife as opposed to…well anywhere at the moment. I had a major one of those at the Pinolere Craft Fair on Saturday...READ MORE

Pools and Pines, A Stunning Tenerife Walk

The Erjos Pools in Santiago del Teide are one of our favourite spots on Tenerife but for many a year events have conspired to prevent us from hiking them.

A couple of weeks ago we spent an idyllic weekend at the Rural Hotel Señorio del Valle in Santiago del Teide and we took the opportunity to finally hike around the Erjos Pools again and this time, to record our route for others to enjoy.

We've called it Pools and Pines and it's now part of the 'Into the Valley – Erjos to Arguayo' Island Walks. Anyone who has bought the Into the Valley Island Walks from us, either individually or as part of the All Walks offer, just email me and I'll send you the updated version free of charge.
Here's a taster of this lovely walk and you can read about it on our Walking Tenerife website.

Rural Hotel Señorio Del Valle, Santiago del Teide.

The Santiago Valley nestles high above the south west coast of Tenerife, flanked by fragrant, emerald pine forests and backed by the site of Tenerife’s last volcanic eruption.
Opened in March 2010, the beautiful Rural Hotel Señorio Del Valle in Santiago del Teide is the ideal place to base yourself for one or two nights to explore the valley’s excellent walking trails... [read the full report on our new Walking Tenerife website]

Update on The Barranco del Infierno in Adeje

The news about one of Tenerife's most popular walks isn't good. The Barranco de Infierno in Adeje closed last August for a bit of TLC for a month...and has never re-opened.
The Barranco was almost ready to be opened to the public in February this year and then disaster hit in the shape of torrential rains which caused serious damage.
Since then news about the re-opening has been sketchy...until now READ MORE

Walk Tenerife from El Palmar to Teno Alto

This is the stunning El Palmar Valley; a secret paradise in Tenerife's north east corner. It's through this valley that the wonderful El Palmar to Teno Alto walk climbs.

You can read about the walk on our new website [...]

Discover Great Hiking in the South West of Tenerife

For many, the south west of Tenerife represents the perfect holiday destination, enjoying as it does some of the longest sunshine hours on the island.
Less frenetic than Playa de Las Américas, better value for money than Costa Adeje and more rural than Los Cristianos, the coast which stretches from Los Gigantes in the west to Playa Paraíso in the south encompasses a diverse selection of resorts.
Backed by colossal cliffs, Los Gigantes is a family resort in a spectacular location where whale and dolphin watching cruises operate from its picturesque marina.
Moving south along the coast, Puerto de Santiago has great fish restaurants around its unpretentious harbour while neighbouring Playa de la Arena gets the blue ribbon award for its clean and sheltered beach.
Little Alcalá brings a Canarian/South American character to the coast and Playa de San Juan provides [read the full blog at our new site]

Walking and Hiking on Tenerife – Some Little Quirks

This is connected to our recent post about trusting directions whilst walking on Tenerife. Our friend who commented about our blogs where we followed paths that took us on the road to nowhere said something else interesting that made me think.

She commented that we mentioned things that if you’ve spent a lot of time walking around Tenerife’s countryside, you hardly register. She’s absolutely spot on. Spend a lot of time hiking on Tenerife and you become very familiar with the island’s little ‘quirks’. (Read the full feature at our new website)

Why You Should Trust Directions from People Who Take Wrong Turnings

A few days ago a friend who enjoys walking on Tenerife commented ‘I enjoy your walking blogs, you’re always getting lost.’

It wasn’t the first time someone had made this comment and it suddenly made me wonder about how our ‘honest’ tales of walking and hiking on Tenerife might be perceived by others, especially those who are looking for walking directions that they can trust for routes on Tenerife.

I mean, would you buy walking directions from people who tell tales of turning up old paths that suddenly fall away into an abyss of a ravine...read more at our new website.

Enjoy a Tenerife Holiday Walk

You don't have to be a committed hiker or a keep fit fanatic to enjoy a holiday walk in Tenerife.

Regardless of where you're staying on the island, you'll find a nice holiday walk close by which will stretch your legs and allow you to see something other than the beach or your hotel pool during your visit.

With Island Walks, we have a whole series of suggested routes to suit everyone from the keenest of hikers to those just looking for a nice holiday walk. Island Walks cover a wide geographical spread of Tenerife so that wherever you're staying; whether you're dependant on public transport or intend to hire a car, there's a walk or two to suit... [read more]

Walking on Tenerife – Exploring the Secret North Coast

We'd been more or less shackled to the computers over the last week and a half., so yesterday decided a bit of great outdoors time was long overdue.

Walking in an area we hadn't really explored before appealed and with yesterday being our wedding anniversary, and a long leisurely meal was due to be the reward for a morning's walking, we didn't want to travel too far.

A hasty bit of research turned up the usual. The official website for Los Realejos waxed lyrical about their wonderful countryside, but didn't actually provided details of walks. In the end we settled on La Matanza, scene of a great Guanche victory over the conquistadors [...] Click her to read more

Walking on Tenerife – That’s The First Time I’ve Ever Seen!

Normally it’s the scenery that astounds us when we’re out exploring Tenerife’s network of trails and forest paths, emerging from dense pines, or turning a corner in a barranco to be faced with an unexpected ‘WOW’ vista. However, the other day the weather performed a neat little trick which I’ve certainly never witnessed before[...] Click Here To Read More

A Big Change to Island Walks

We've decided that a nip and tuck is necessary for Island Walks. What started out as a blog has evolved to the extent that we decided that we wanted more flexibility to present information and display photographs about walking on Tenerife in a more dynamic manner. So Island Walks is moving to a brand new website - walkingtenerife.co.uk

We're currently building up the site and will continue to post walking articles on this blog as well as on the new site for the time being. But soon we're hoping to move everything across to Walking Tenerife - we really hope you'll like the change of style.

Walking Directions on Tenerife – The Chinyero Volcano – Almost Perfect Signage…Almost

This week we thought we were going to have to eat our words about the lack of consistency regarding official walking signage on Tenerife when we ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ at the lovely brand new signs leading us to the Chinyero Volcano in the west of the island.

Admittedly getting to the actual walk had involved ignoring a signpost which suggested that the road to the start of the walk may or may not have been shut – it wasn’t – and then knowing where the actual walk began as the signposts didn’t start till we were on the walk. This sort of flawed thinking runs through a lot of Canarian thinking. You have to know that something exists, and where it exists to find out more info about it. It means that if you’re a visitor, there are a lot of things going on that you never get to hear about. Walking routes don’t just start at the first signpost.

But being already armed with this info, this potential stumbling block at the start didn’t pose a problem. To be honest, I didn’t even think about it until I started writing this. It’s something we have to remind ourselves of on a regular basis – to try to look at walks through the eyes of someone who isn’t overly familiar with Tenerife or its quirky little ways.

Anyway we set off along a new and very clear path and at every crossroads there were signs complete with distances. Okay, the angle of a couple might not have been perfect, but that’s being overly picky.

It was one of, if not the clearest marked walking route that we’ve experienced on Tenerife and was getting the thumbs up from us as the perfect walking route. This was looking like a shining example of what the future of Tenerife as a top walking destination could look like.

But this is Tenerife; where the illogical is almost compulsory. As we reached a point in the walk which was less than a couple of hundred yards from the Boca Tauce road and therefore a perfect spot for walkers to access the route from the south and south west, the path completely ignored this and continued parallel with the road before heading inland again.

Not only were there no signs from the path to the road, or vice versa, there were yellow and white crosses advising that it was definitely not part of the route.

Basically this was a walk which was perfectly laid out for people starting from the northern side of the island, but people on the southern side might not be aware it existed even though they were only metres from it. It was bizarre and I can’t quite figure out, considering the care and attention that went into signposting the rest of the walk, why there was such a serious omission at that point.

But there you go; ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do and…discover.

Walking on Tenerife – all that glistens is not gold.

 

We often get asked about walking routes in the west by people who are planning to holiday in and around Los Gigantes. So over the past couple of weeks we’ve been concentrating on that area and trying out some walks.

We knew that there was an old trading path running from somewhere around Guía de Isora up into the hills so last week we set off to find it. We were working off information supplied by the Ayuntamiento (Town Hall) which, as usual, was reprinted on a regular basis without anyone checking if it was still current.
Consequently, the start of the route had long since disappeared, replaced by new roads and walls.

After a precipitous false start and some hesitant exploration, we finally found the route and once we were on our way, were pleasantly surprised to find that it was in fact well signed and easy to navigate. At multiple path junctions, signposts gave good directions and distances, routes were way-marked with painted stripes and there were even information boards at various points, showcasing other routes.

Having enjoyed and chronicled a lovely, rural, circular route we emerged back into Guía alongside someone’s house, at the bottom of a dead end, accessed via a series of climbs, twists and turns through housing estates, with not a single signpost to mark it. Had we been looking to start the walk from that side, we would probably still be wandering around Guía now.

That same afternoon we drove further up into the hills to do a short(ish) route at the start of which a brand new, fancy sign had been erected by the Cabildo (Island Government).
Within metres of setting off from the sign, we were unsure of which way to go, our indecision hampered by two small dogs growling and snapping at our heels. Once we’d found an overgrown semblance of a path, it split off in different directions constantly with no marker signs for guidance. Although we were alongside a steep barranco (ravine) and so our direction was pretty obvious, finding the way through was proving to be impossible.

After aborted attempts to drop down dodgy trails on the side of the barranco, we finally found our path completely blocked by two parked vans alongside a house. Re-tracing steps; trying different trails and even asking a couple of locals all amounted to nothing. We finally gave up, tired and frustrated with feet embedded with sharp seed heads from wading through the tangled mass of undergrowth.
The Medio Ambiente (Environmental Department) had clearly decided to re-open the path and had begun by putting up the fancy sign. When, or if, they’ll get round to re-claiming the path from man and nature and giving it clear markings is anybody’s guess.

The moral of this tale is that, on Tenerife, you can’t tell a walk from its signpost.

Walking routes for the south west coming soon…

Walking in the Teide Crater – It's Tajinaste Time

They don't seem as though they belong. In an other-worldly setting they look like visitors from another planet themselves; their tall proud spikes standing out against the ruddy tones of the volcanic landscape like splashes of blood on a canvas.

It's easy to believe that they are extra-terrestrial visitors enjoying their annual couple of weeks in Tenerife's sunshine before heading back to who knows where.

If anyone hasn't seen them up close and personal then, at some point before mid June, it's worth making the trip up to Las Cañadas del Teide see the brief but spectacular blooming of the tajinaste plant.

Yesterday we traveled back from the south of Tenerife to Puerto de la Cruz via the crater, hoping that our timing was right and the fields of this unusual plant would be there to welcome us – we weren't disappointed.

As you drive along the roads from the southern entrances toward Mount Teide, the tajinaste aren't always easy to spot; they can behave like shy creatures, keeping just out of sight below ridges beside the road. But once you know where they are it's impossible to miss them and conveniently they come back to the same spots year after year. They also congregate around the cable car like the human visitors to Tenerife and by the time you're on the road north, they've lost their shyness and huddle around miradors (viewing areas) and stand at the side of the road like flamboyant hitch-hikers.

But it's essential to get in amongst them by foot to really appreciate their uniqueness. We must have timed it perfectly this year as the island's bees were enjoying their annual shopping trip to the tajinaste – the black spots in the picture aren't dust on the camera lens – and the air was alive with excited buzzing as I leaned in close to try to get some intimate shots of the bees on the flowers. I wasn't particularly concerned that bees were buzzing around my head; there was only one thing on their little insect radar and it wasn't me. I was able to take photo after photo without fear of getting zapped by a bee.

Visiting the tajinaste in bloom is one of those unique little experiences that makes walking on Tenerife ultra special and witnessing these amazing plants bloom in such spectacular style in such a dry, violent landscape makes the soul soar. I can't recommend it enough.

Walking on Tenerife – Those Boots Were Made For Walking

My favourite boots are a pair of old Camel boots that I've probably worn about twenty times. I was completely seduced by an advert in a travel magazine which basically showed a foot resting on a log in a clearing in the jungle. On the foot was a gleaming Camel boot which looked about as at home in that exotic setting as a piece of leather, not actually on an animal, could be. I couldn't resist them.

Their first outing was to Kenya where they seemed just the ticket for exploring Tsavo East on foot. The reality though was that, as walking boots go, they turned out to be a complete bust. They might have looked the part, but just walking from the safari lodge bar to a table overlooking a watering hole with a G&T (don't actually drink the stuff, but it did seem appropriate) to enjoy sunset was enough to bring up a blister. In the end I carried them around Kenya instead of them carrying me.

Since then I've learned to choose my footwear carefully when it comes to buying shoes for practical reasons; something that when you're tackling Tenerife's diverse range of landscapes is a far more sensible approach.

Footwear for Walking on Tenerife

My number one walking boots for donkey's years have been a trusty pair of brasher's, similar to their current Hillmaster boot. I brought them from Britain with me and they've proved equal to the task of tackling all of Tenerife's terrains from the sliding volcanic scree on the way to the summit of Mount Teide to pine covered forest floors in the forests of the Orotava Valley and icy slopes in Las Cañadas del Teide.

These sort of sturdy boots are good all rounders for exploring the island on foot. But mine can feel quite heavy in the summer months when the temperature rises off the scale and boots like the brasher can make my feet feel as though they're a wee bit overdressed.

So when the temperatures rise, and the terrain permits, I tend to switch to a walking sandal. For a long time I wore a pair of Merrells when walking in summer months (between May and the end October) in areas where the ascents weren't too steep or slippery (good for coastal walks). They struggled a bit with some of the terrain, especially in the upper La Orotava Valley where a bit of dry floor ski-ing can add some excitement to trails when the forest floor is thick with pine needles. It was on one such walk that one of them fell apart mid-walk (to be fair I'd had them for a few years and they'd seen some action).
I couldn't find a suitable replacement until I spotted what looked like an almost identical pair of sandals in my local supermarket at a fraction of the price. To be honest I didn't expect much of them and tried them out on a short coastal walk around Las Ramblas in Los Realejos to see how they'd hold up. It turned out they felt no different from my old Merrells and two years later they're still going strong. They were an incredible bargain considering they cost me €2.99.

Recently I added another addition to my walking footwear stable, a pair of Quechua lightweight walking shoes. I could feel my feet sigh with joy as I tried them out for the first time on a trek last week. The temperature was hovering around 30 degrees and the terrain was more uneven than I'd expected with a couple of steep ascent/descents but the shoes stuck to the path as though they had solvent on them. After 15 kilometres my feet and the shoes were still best of mates.

The only downside was that they were so comfortable that at the end of the walk I was denied that delicious pleasure of peeling off my boots and walking socks and slipping them into an airy pair of sandals to let them breathe a sigh of relief.

It was only their first outing, they'll get the second tomorrow, so it'll be interesting to see how they hold up over the long term.

They won't be sturdy enough for the most serious walks like climbing Teide, or even the muddy Anaga paths after the winter rains, but it looks as though the brashers are going to get a well earned rest over the summer.

Organised Walks – A Bee's View of Mount Teide

Here's an interesting little guided walking route – El Teide A Vista De Abeja. It's based around an area  which is a magnet to bees-the Fasnia Volcano, and is as much about the flora, bees and honey as it is about enjoying the stunning scenery.

There are limited places available and a €15 fee includes transport from La Laguna. The 7 km walk takes place on Saturday 29th May; the perfect time for a walk in the crater as the tajinaste should be in full bloom.

For more information call the Tenerife Rural office on 922 531 013

Creating A Barrier Free Paradise – Tenerife's First Wheelchair Friendly Path

Last week the first wheelchair friendly forest path was opened by Tenerife president, Ricardo Melchior in Tacoronte's highlands.

The specially developed path is in Agua García, next to the Barranco de Toledo, and covers a distance of  860 metres (both ways) through the forest.

It might only be a small concession to opening up Tenerife's countryside to people who may not otherwise be able to enjoy it, but it is a commendable one.